INTRODUCTION Astronaut Edwin Buzz Aldrin Jr pilot of the Gemini 12 spacecraft performing an extravehicular activity EVA on Nov 12 1966 the second day of the four day mission in space Aldrin is positioned next to the Agend workstation NASA Great Images in Nasa Collection
INTRODUCTION ioneers are bold and daring individuals who go where no one has been or only few others have gone before Pioneering can be mental where someone explores the unknown using theory as well as physical where a person actually travels to distant locations The pioneers of astronomy and space exploration fall into both camps As this book details astronomers through the centuries have attempted to explain mys teries of the universe using observation and scientific theory with their feet planted firmly on Earth Beginning in the 20th cen tury however men and women boarded rocket ships and were launched into space for firsthand exploration Ancient astronomers weren't the first people to notice or even wonder about the Sun Moon and stars They were however the first to apply scientific reason and order to the universe Considered the earliest astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidus recorded the positions and dates of visibility for con stellations He also concluded that the Sun Moon and known planets traveled in con sistent paths or orbits although he was off the mark when he claimed that Earth was the center of all this
PIONEERS IN ASTRONOMY AND SPACE EXPLORATION Many of the great thinkers of the time including Aristotle based their work on Eudoxus s model of the universe amending various parts as new information came to light This set the pattern for the advance ment of astronomy as a science with new theories building on those that came before Hipparchus and Ptolemy used the meth ods devised by Aristarchus of Samos in an attempt to figure out the size of the Moon and its distance from Earth Also influenced by Aristarchus was the father of modern astronomy Nicolaus Copernicus whose own theories were later championed by Galileo Tycho Brahe shared his data with Johannes Kepler who in turn greatly influenced Sir Isaac Newton Intrigued by the observations of astron omers and in some cases by science fiction stories as well physicists and engineers of the 20th century developed the technology that would allow for exploration in space The work of Robert H Goddard Wernher Von Braun and other rocket scientists led to spacecraft that would launch humans into orbit The earliest pioneers who rode those rockets into space came from the former Io
INTRODUCTION Soviet Union now Russia and the United States In a race to space each country tried to outdo the other with its achievements in exploring the so called final frontier Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin won the title of first human in space over American astronauts Alan B Shepherd who made a suborbital flight about three weeks after Gagarin's fight and John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth Americans how ever were first to land on the Moon where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the surface and planted an American flag Women also made their mark as space explorers Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union was the first woman to travel in space while Sally Ride was the first American woman to do so Although tragedy cut her journey short of its goal teacher Christa McAullife was chosen as the first private citizen to travel into space aboard the U S space shuttle Challenger These days space pioneering is done mostly by unmanned satellites which travel to distant locations and beam images back to Earth Yet humans may once again venture deep into space spurred on by the accom plishments of pioneers from days gone by II
